Chiajna – Calarasi

Concordia Chiajna will host Dunarea Calarasi in the 10th round of the Romanian Liga 1, with the two teams both expected to be immersed in the relegation battle at the end of the season.

Chiajna is currently 11th (out of 14) in the standings, and the team is in horrendous form. After 3 consecutive losses, all with the same score, 0-3 (!!), the hosts made a managerial change two weeks ago. The new coach had a good start as Chiajna got a rare win in his first game in charge, but a few days ago Chiajna lost again with 0-3, this time in the Cup. Overall, Chiajna has 1 win and 4 losses in the last 5 games in all competitions, posting an abysmal goal difference of 2-12.

Dunarea Calarasi is a newcomer in the Romanian Liga 1 and so far the team has done a decent job. Calarasi is 9th in the standings, mainly because of their good defense. The visitors allowed just 10 goals in 9 rounds, which is impressive for a low level team like them. On the other hand, they only scored 9 times. Last round Dunarea lost 0-2 away against title favorites FCSB, but bounced back with a 2-0 win of their own in the Cup a few days ago (against a fourth league team).

There`s little doubt that fans are set to see the mother of boring football here. Not only are these two teams some of the worst in the Romanian first league, but they are also offensively challenged.

Chiajna has scored less than one goal per game this season in average, while Calarasi has scored exactly one goal per game (while also conceding only 1.1 goals per game).

The only stat which is out of place is the one regarding Chiajna`s defense, as the hosts have allowed goals left and right recently. For the season they concede an average of 1.55 goals per game in Liga 1 (not a disaster), but recently they have been particularly leaky.

However, Chiajna should be able to improve at the back under the new manager. More importantly, Dunarea Calarasi is a very defensive minded team with an extremely defensive oriented manager. This is even more true on the road, where they usually play a kind of 4-5-1 with 3 defensive midfielders. Dunarea`s results away from home this season in Liga 1 have been 1-0, 1-1, 1-1, 0-1 and 0-2, usually against much more offensive minded teams than Chiajna.

Needles to say that Dunarea Calarasi isn`t expected to create many chances here. But on the same note their disciplined defense should be able to keep in check a below average team like Chiajna, which hasn`t scored in 4 of the last 5 games.

It would be a pretty big surprise to see more than 1 or 2 goals here, and quite honestly I expected the under to be priced extremely low on this match, maybe around 1.45. With this in mind, my tip will be under 2,5 goals to be scored. The match will surely be slow and ugly, and as long as there won`t be a very high conversion of chances into goals, we should be fine for a small but decent profit with reasonable stakes. Prediction: Concordia Chiajna – Dunarea Calarasi 0-0.